Why Date Someone Your Age When You Can Date Someone Younger?

This thought had just occurred to me right now. Why date someone your age (and you can be whatever age) when you can date someone younger? Seems like a pretty straightforward question, right? I ask this because I’ve been reading a lot of blogs on WordPress, both male and females, and admittedly, some of these blogs are people in their “fresh out of high school” to early 20’s but there’s a big chunk of them who are in their early 30’s to early 40’s who seem to be experiencing the same dating woes as their younger counterparts. And it got me thinking. If these 30-something to 40-something year old men and women are acting as though they are still in high school, what difference does it make if one dates within one’s age range or date someone who is a lot younger since in both circumstances, the woes most frequently expressed from each side of the gender divide is that their dates tended to be emotionally immature, played games, failure to commit, and/or wishy-washy, despite having full-time jobs, are financially secure, and have active social lives?

It does make one think. For those of us who are, in fact, trying to look for something long-term, it certainly doesn’t play into our hands, you know what I mean? Also, for those of us who just so happens to be more mature, more grounded, and play less games, often times, we are the one’s that get screwed over so badly. Eventually, good people like us might just turn into one of the many hundreds of thousands of people who play games, who refuse to commit, and who ultimately ‘joins in’ and plays the game that which is called dating in an effort to get back at that last guy or that last girl that played you so badly. But that, my fellow blog readers, is inappropriately displacing all that anger, all that rage, and all that frustration on the unsuspecting male and/or female potential date who just came into your life, who in turn become bitter about the dating game depending on where they are at in life, how many men and/or women they have dated or had been in a relationship with, thus repeating that vicious cycle that which is the dating game.

It doesn’t need to be that way. It really doesn’t. And all it takes is a bit of responsibility and owning up to one’s actions. That’s essentially the difference between someone who happens to be biologically an adult (meaning, physically, he or she is a grown ass man or woman) but still has the emotional maturity of a child and one who is, in fact, an adult, both biologically and emotionally. And, I think, the only way to achieve this is to do away with the whole concept of “hook-ups,” “friends with benefits,” “filler relationships,” and whatever new abomination that this hookup culture was brought upon by the millenial and teeny-bopper generation. (By the way, that’s another thing I want talk about in another entry. The differences between the millenial[dot-com] generation and the teeny-bopper[digital] generation and often times, the baby boomers and Generation X tend to lump us all together. We’re not the same. If you’re born any year after 1986, you’re not a millenial! Here’s how I break it down. From 1977 to 1986, that’s the millenial generation. Anytime before that, up until maybe the mid-60’s, you’re Generation X, and so on and so forth for the baby boomers and previous generations. It’s roughly a decade or so apart from each other generation that you can really tell that one person clearly thinks differently from the other).

Now, granted, all these various forms of non-relationships relationships, they’ve been around the block since the dawn of humans. They have. It’s a fact. It’s written in your DNA. But, having said that, it doesn’t mean that we should give into our human nature at every chance we get. Yet, that seems to be the norm. So, let’s just suppose for a moment that if this is the norm, why date someone your age when you can date someone who is ordinarily considered that same level of emotional maturity? I realize that this opens up the floodgates for 60 year olds to date 20 year olds, but you know, if you think about it, it’s already happening (if you’ve paid attention to the news of older women teachers in schools having sex with younger men ages 14-18) and there’s no real incentive to date someone your age who, for all you know, may act just as emotionally immature as the gal or guy who is younger, hotter, better physique, and is more energetic than your contemporaries. Remember now, I’m just talking about dating. Not marriage, not something long-term, and/or something that would into another that is more serious in nature. Just dating. But on that note, I think people should be upfront of what they want and then let the other party decide if he or she wants to stick it out for better or worse.

I seriously think that people should ask themselves this. Because, apparently, there’s a shortage of adults who take responsibility for their actions out there in the dating scene. But I also think that part of the problem is the hookup culture, amongst other things, like the shitty economy, and the third-wave of feminism (OH NO HE DIDN’T!). Yes, feminism. That deserves an entry (in fact, several entries) on its own. Welp, it’s about time for work so until next time!